Test Management Boot Camp: Test Management 101

1. Test Management Boot Camp: Test Management 101 Jon D. Hagar embedded@ecentral.com

2. Topics • Basic Overview - Just a Start • Management Fundamentals • Supervision and Leadership • Teams • Keys to Success • Agile Objective: Basic test and some general management concepts Pointers since this subject can take volumes (if you aren’t familiar with one of these topics or ideas—please read)

3. Management Fundamentals Pointy haired dude You • Organization • Know who you work for and who works for you • Understand the politics • Politics are endemic anywhere humans form social groups—make it work for you • ref: The Prince • Nature of the organization • Formal and traditional hierarchy based (above) • Capability Maturity Model Integrated (CMMI) • Agile – desirable and many are “evolving” towards • Organizations Evolve - ref: STQE - Nov/Dec 99 - Derby

4. Managing the Job (Needs) • Contracts and Requirements – drive the software and testing • What is the job for you as a tester (lead) and what is the product? • Who is the customer and what do they need and/or want • Customer-user/contract requirements can be general or specific • Requirements usually evolve and become more “specific” once testing has begun • Even if there are no formal requirements, there are still requirements • ref: STQE March/April 99 - Testing in the Dark - Rothman/Lawrence • You can test without requirements (many do)

5. The $$$ Basics – Test Money and Budget • Budgeting - avoid “rules of thumb”, e.g., 1 tester to n developers • Size - Negotiation of amounts,ref: Kaner: How to Save Time & Money in Testing • Cost– Estimation,ref: Kaner: Quality Cost Analysis: Benefits and Risks • Effort - The cost and amount must be tied to tasking efforts to “sell well” • Models - Models that estimate cost and size • Find tools like COCOMO or ref: STQE Dec/Nov 99 - Garmus/Herron 40 35 30 25 Percent of project 20 Series1 15 10 5 0 0 20 40 60 80 100 Percentage of cost allocated to Testing About 35% of programs spend 30% of their effort on testing (most spend much more)

6. Management - Time • Time Management • Planning – Do it, get buy in, make it fit you, maintain/change it…. • Scheduling - Based on budget, resources, task, and time expect frequent changes • Examples: Pert charts and simple tables with task due dates, assignees, burn down charts, backlog lists, etc. • Agile: do not over commit • Status and tracking - Weekly, daily standup, End of sprint/cycle and/or walk-about • Do not overreact and constantly re-plan, understand “reality” • Have “fail safe” check points • Measurement - For the more mature, but even then, understand what the numbers are actually indicating • Use time boxing – J. Rothman (www.jrothman.com) • Watch out when “multi-tasking” • – Stay focused, get things done

7. Management Provisioning • Resources • Hiring and keeping people • Passion for your job, attitude, human resource issues • People are key • Facilities - buildings, computers, tools, software, labs • Configuration and data management • Products • Requirements, design, code, documentation, test, data inputs/outputs, everything • Problem reporting/tracking - Important to test • ref: STQE Nov/Dec 99 - How to control software changes - Starbuck

8. For the More Mature (maybe?) • Measurement - How do you know where you are or what you have? • Improvement - If is not broke—break it.If it is broken—fix it. • Training - Computer h/w life is 18 months. Software on the web life is weeks— maybe days. The Cloud is hours and days (bug to release) • If you are not learning, you are passé • Learning = School, books, web, conferences, journals …. • What books have you read (on your bookshelf)? • Risk and Mitigation • Everything in life and business has risk, learning to recognize risk makes a good manager. Learning to “prevent” risk (mitigation) makes a great manager • Risks are not problems. Risks are potentialproblems, and might be “work” • Mitigation: proactive vs. reactive • Car insurance vs. having to walk • Managing the black hole: Project Risk – G. Gack

9. Supervision/Leadership Fundamentals • Lead people, do not boss them around • Information flows - people like the truth • The walk-about - do not have closed doors, go to your people, listen to your people • There are natural leaders but you can be a learned leader • Even Agile teams need leaders • Setting goals for the team and the employee • Start “right” from the beginning: be clear, have focus, provide feedback • Leading and participating in meetings • Must be able to make presentations • Active listening with feedback • Take the heat - can you say “we made a mistake” and minimize “yes but”

10. Team Dynamic Leadership Basics • Team and conflict management • Every team goes through the following phases: • Forming Storming Norming Performing • Expect these and allow them to “flow” (no festering) in a natural direction • One key (of many) in conflict is communication (the White House hot line) Form Storm Norm Perform

11. Effective Leadership • Coaching - real-time manager Praise the good Check Progress Set Goal Problem Set Goal Reprimand Problem

12. Leadership in Strategic Planning • Do It, Try It, Fix It - embrace change • Stay close to your customer • Tolerate (some) risk - Entrepreneurship • Invest in people, process, and product • Be a hands-on leader • Focus on strengths, work on improving weaknesses • Simple organization (flat, responsive, personal) • Core Values but decentralized decisions • Core attributes of successful companies • ref: In Search of Excellence: Peters and Waterman

13. Handling People Problems • Control - Have a defined system • Watch being a “micro” manager = give people roles and responsibility with some freedom • Agile: you still will have “people problems” • Failures • Do not hide them • Learn from them or repeat them • Do not “punish” anyone at the first failure Conduct Process Measure- ment Inputs Outputs Feedback/ Improvement

14. Team Fundamentals • Process vs. Chaos - have processes, roles, and rules (within reason) • Requirements, design, implementation, test, support functions • Know your job • Total chaos is bad; some creative chaos is predictable • Agile: let the team organize and run the details, these are “smart” people • Quality is everyone’s job (not just QA or test) • Keep records - Even though people have a love/hate relationship with documentation • Work to get, training, and keep good people - This is very HARD • Personal and Team Software Process books • Ref: Watts Humphrey’s • Ref: Agile teams: Lean Software Development – Poppendieck

15. The Keys (taken with software flair from Deming) • Purpose - Have one and make it clear • New Philosophy – “Break it” • Be happy with your work or change it, change your attitude, or work somewhere else doing something else • Work smart • Reach for the hard things; those easily achieved are not appreciated • Do the job right the first time • Don’t depend on inspection and test, instead use it as part of the process to find errors early (the duality of test) • Consider quality-price-schedule continuum, and not just each part separately • Improve process/product in small steps forever • On the job learning and training • On the job training/skill improvement is best learning • Get Smarter! – read, take classes, webinar, email, almost too much now….

16. More Keys • Lead by example - Employees are watching; think about who you watch • Listen - drive out fear - Trust takes time • Use team approaches - Minimize barriers between groups or departments • No buzzwords or slogans – But if you do have them, care and understand what underlies them • Eliminate management by objective and quotas, instead have goals and measures • What is the difference? • First bad = Thou shall do 100 SLOC a day or else Second better = We planned 100, achieved 80, what can we do different or should 80 be a normal plan? • Watch out for “Annual Evaluations” — Be a “real-time manager” • Improve people, process and products forever • Have passion and care about yourself and your people

17. Agile Teams – Not an Agile Session, but • Agile still has leaders and managers with many challenges • Self managing team changes some things • Agile seems to be going mostly to Scrum • Get away from the “factory” school • Evolve your management style • Favorite “tools” and concepts • Daily stand up meetings and team work • Testing focus (TDD and ATDD) • Focused work (sprints) and iterations/increments • Information radiators • Amplify learning and growth • Decide as late as possible but decide based on sound data points • Deliver as fast and rapid as possible (hourly?) • Build in integrity and testing • Systems view (see the whole) • What is critical (must work first) and needs to be right? • Automation and exploratory testing

18. Summary • These topics are the subject of hundreds of books, web sites, classes, and experts. • This material should give you some keys to begin unlocking your future. • Supervision and management can be learned, if you want to —but it all takes is your time and effort. • Pick one or two topics and work on them a little at time—don’t try to do everything at once (make an orderly change).

19. Good References (not in text) • Find Books by: • The leader of the future - Peter Drucker • W. Edwards Deming’s writings • Quality Software Management, volumes 1-4 - Gerald Weinberg • Managing the black hole - Gack • In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America’s Best Run Companies - Peters and Waterman • Agile testing – Crispin & Gregory, • Lean Software Development – Poppendieck, • And many, many others • WWW sites: • //www.stqemagazine.com/STQE - STQE Magazine • http://www.kaner.com/ - Cem Kaner WWW • http://www.geraldmweinberg.com - G. Weinberg’s site